The Papaya Strikeout

The cafeteria table felt like a stage, and I was failing my audition. My supposed best friend Jason sat across from me, scrolling through his phone like I didn't exist. Again.

"What's with the spinach?" Chloe asked, sliding onto the bench beside me. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and pool water—summer even in October.

"Trying to be healthy," I mumbled, pushing the green leaves around my tray. Actually, I'd grabbed whatever looked least like myself. New school year, new Marcus, right?

"That's random," she said, but she was smiling. Chloe noticed me. Jason didn't.

The door banged open. Tyler marched in wearing his varsity jacket, cleats clicking on the linoleum. The whole cafeteria seemed to shift toward him like sunflowers following light. "Baseball tryouts after school. Don't embarrass yourselves."

My heart hammered. I'd been practicing my swing for weeks in the backyard, timing my breaths with the pitch of an imaginary ball. I wanted this. Needed this.

"You trying out?" Chloe asked, like she actually cared about the answer.

"Yeah."

"Bull," Jason said, finally looking up from his phone. "You hate sports. You hate everything I like. Remember last year when you skipped every game?"

Heat crept up my neck. Because he was right. But I was different now. Or I was trying to be.

After school, I stood in the outfield, glove swallowing my hand, watching Tyler crush pitches into the fence. My turn came. I stepped up, heart somewhere in my throat, and swung at nothing but air. Strike one. Strike two. Strike three.

Someone laughed. Tyler.

I walked home, cleats in hand, wanting to disappear. Chloe caught up with me, breathless. "Hey."

"Don't. I know I sucked."

"Yeah, you did." She pulled something from her bag—this weird, orange-yellow fruit I'd never seen. "But you tried out. That's huge for you."

"What is that?"

"Papaya. My mom's obsessed with them. It's like... if mango and melendez had a baby. Weirdly good."

She split it with her thumbs. We stood on the sidewalk eating it, juice dripping down our chins, while the rest of the world hurried past.

"Jason doesn't get it," she said. "He's stuck on last year's version of you. But you're changing. That's allowed."

Something loosened in my chest. "You think I should keep trying out for baseball?"

"Honestly? You were terrible today." She grinned. "But so was I on my first tryout last year. Now I'm the starting shortstop. Keep showing up."

I walked home feeling lighter, spinach and papaya and failure swirling in my stomach, but for the first time in forever, I didn't want to be anyone else.